Not Think
by LuvEwan
Summary: Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan survive another mission. Obi-Wan is injured. On the way back to Coruscant, Qui-Gon is caretaker and casual philosopher. Obi-Wan is mostly grateful. One post.


**Not Think**

written by LuvEwan

PG

Characters: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn. No one else. No one else is even _mentioned_.

Dislcaimer: Nothing belongs to moi.

Author's Note: This is something I wrote because I wanted to write mush. As much mush as humanly possible, with my two favorite fellas doin' the mushin'. If you're reading this and thinking "my word, this is quite a lot of mush for one story"---you are right, sir. Once you read this soggy bowl of cereal, you'll understand how difficult it was trying to come up with an actual _summary_

Thanks to Spiritweaver for being my wingman, and harassing me into finishing this story. You get _two_ cookies as payment.

Summary: Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan survive another mission. Obi-Wan is injured. On the way back to Coruscant, Qui-Gon is caretaker and casual philosopher. Obi-Wan is mostly grateful.

--

In bleary moments, usually at dusk, Qui-Gon wondered if he had forgotten Coruscant completely. For so long there was only this place and its darkness and rot. He could not remember the stillness of the Temple, when all the Jedi seemed to share a communal peace. Nor could he recall what his Padawan looked like, without the shadows under his eyes, or the alarming scruff along his jaw.

But finally, they were going home. The transport waited for them. A stretch of morose, life-leached land separated the teacher and student from escape. Qui-Gon admitted to himself, in the quiet, that he would have walked straight through the night to get to the transport faster. But he could not ask Obi-Wan to do that.

In the hoary yellow grass, his Padawan slept. Turned on his side, Qui-Gon could see the saturated bandage stretched across Obi-Wan's flank, where the tunic was ripped away. Qui-Gon held his hand above the bandage, willed more healing energies into his Padawan's injured body. He would not think of how it happened, or how Obi-Wan sounded, so unlike himself, so savagely like himself, screaming in his pain.

Obi-Wan was alive. They would leave.

He reached out, and touched Obi-Wan's hair. It would need to be cut after he left the Temple infirmary. Obi-Wan did not appear a Padawan as much as he did a fresh Knight, just grown out of the regulation crop, braid caught inside the neck of his tunic.

His fingers moved to those pale-red stirrings of a beard. The unavoidable laxness in Obi-Wan's grooming was an annoyance to the young man, and Qui-Gon caught him rubbing the new, short hairs on his skin many times.

Obi-Wan would look fine with a beard—some day. But Qui-Gon could not imagine him outside of his Padawan role, and the Master would not miss this straggly, worn out look. He felt….uncomfortable. As if he were lying in the grass with a near-stranger.

He slept when the sky grew too black to watch.

--

He woke when he felt a pressure against his chest. Even the stress of this dragging mission had not changed his basic reactions; he slowly, calmly opened his eyes and looked down. Obi-Wan was asleep, head resting where Qui-Gon's heart was.

He let himself breathe deeply. The air was colder, he realized, and he drew his arm around Obi-Wan. But the movement only disturbed the younger man. He sensed an increased alertness in his student.

"On th'…..transport?" Obi-Wan murmured, sounding winded, or a little drunk.

The darkness was perfect enough to pass for deep space. And they were floating in it. "No, not yet. We stopped for the night, remember?"

"Oh," then he seemed to feel the weight of Qui-Gon, half beneath him, and started to roll away with a jerk.

But Qui-Gon tightened his arm around the slender form, held him steadily. "It's alright. It's very cold."

Obi-Wan nodded against him, and was silent.

After awhile, Qui-Gon began rubbing his back.

"I never want to think of this place again."

Qui-Gon was startled, but did not slow the rhythm. He sighed. "Nor do I. But every experience offers a chance of learning, of becoming more than we were to begin with."

"Yes, Master."

A moment passed. Then Qui-Gon whispered, "But there are things about this place I wish to never think of again, ever. I learn nothing new from seeing my Padawan in pain."

He did not expect the water, and warmth, to come to his eyes, any more than he expected Obi-Wan to kiss the tear when it came down his cheek.

"Better my pain, than yours." Obi-Wan said, and his voice was older, heavier.

Qui-Gon wished he had not pulled Obi-Wan closer. He could smell the blood left on his Padawan and feel Obi-Wan's heart as a double-pulse, against his chest and in his ears. It was selfish and deluded of him, but sometimes he wanted to forget Obi-Wan was, at the root, a vulnerable thing of flesh, capable of being hurt, capable of dying.

He kissed Obi-Wan's forehead. "Go back to sleep."

--

The transport looked like an ancient animal in the grass, almost quivering. Qui-Gon blinked, but did not allow his step to slow. He walked up the ramp with Obi-Wan a step behind. He marveled, as he had when they first arrived, that they could both even fit inside the battered clunker.

Obi-Wan waited dutifully beside him in the cockpit until Qui-Gon told him to lie down. He programmed the destination, Coruscant, at last Coruscant, and did not linger for the hyperspace jump before heading after Obi-Wan.

In the ship's only private room, Obi-Wan was already resting gingerly on his side. The bandage was soaked through; thankfully, the serious bleeding had been staunched by Qui-Gon the day before. The morning trek had erased the last suggestion of health from the Padawan. He looked sallow in the cabin lighting. Qui-Gon sat beside him. The ship lurched as it left the planet's atmosphere.

"You need to get rid of this grimy hair." He combed the limp locks out of Obi-Wan's face. "Not everyone can pull off a longer style. Although I am one of those who can."

Obi-Wan opened his eyes and smiled.

Qui-Gon touched his face. "You're a little feverish."

Obi-Wan nodded.

"We won't land for at least sixty hours." Qui-Gon removed his own boots, then Obi-Wan's. The room suddenly held a staleness. He grimaced. "Perhaps that was a mistake." He scanned the room. A fresher the size of a child's closet was crammed into one corner. Patting Obi-Wan's shoulder, he rose and inspected what materials were available to him in the tiny, dim room.

He came back with a cool, damp cloth.

"Let's get the fever down now and clean up while we're at it."

--

Being a Jedi offered little in the way of intimacy. Communing with the Force required strength of the mind, and the body was always secondary, a fleeting shell.

Qui-Gon stroked Obi-Wan's arm with the cloth. He had peeled the sweat-soiled tunic and leggings off. Even after a rigorous scrubbing, he was not sure the clothing was salvageable. In silence, he washed the grit and sick-grime from the pale skin.

Obi-Wan's eyes were closed, but he remained cognizant, shifting when he needed to.

It was so rare for them to be this way. Quiet, thoughts still, bonding through a cleansing touch. He could feel his Padawan's slow breaths. When Obi-Wan groaned, Qui-Gon knew he had migrated too close to the wound, and he felt that pain reverberate from Obi-Wan to himself.

After awhile he began to see his apprentice through the debris. He rinsed the cloth before moving to Obi-Wan's face. He wiped his chin, his cheeks, his nose and forehead. Now Obi-Wan looked at him, relief sweating out of him with the fever.

Qui-Gon folded the cloth and laid it across the cooled brow, left his hand there. "Better?"

Obi-Wan laid his hand over Qui-Gon's. His eyes closed.

--

While Obi-Wan slept, Qui-Gon stripped off his own dirt-crusted tunics and washed in the fresher Checked the console, the ship's progress. He ate a ration bar and drank some water, poured Obi-Wan a glass when he sensed new wakefulness.

Indeed, Obi-Wan was sitting up in the bed, blankets tucked around his waist. . Qui-Gon handed him the glass and sat beside him.

Obi-Wan took several swallows. "Thank you," he said , giving the glass back.

Qui-Gon set it aside. He looked Obi-Wan over and said, regretfully, "I need to see the bandage."

Obi-Wan's face was a little gray, but he nodded. "Yes, Master." He turned on his side, resting his head on his elbow.

Qui-Gon decided that it was safe to open the bandage. The fever was gone, and the ship's limited atmosphere was clean. And now that Obi-Wan was more relaxed, he could handle the wound being touched. Still, Qui-Gon warned him. "I'm going to disinfect and stitch this. The ship supplies are not what I would have wanted, but it's enough."

Perhaps he had not correctly anticipated Obi-Wan's reaction. His skin was already sickly again. Qui-Gon hoped he would not vomit. Still, Obi-Wan managed a "Yes, Master."

Qui-Gon smoothed his too-long hair. "Sorry I put this off....It's not going to be pleasant." And he slowly parted the gauzy square from Obi-Wan's skin, aware of the hiss that slipped between his Padawan's gritted teeth.

He placed his hands on either side of the red gash. Instantly Obi-Wan tensed beneath him. He could not even hear him breathing.

"If you work yourself up, the pain will be greater, Obi-Wan. You know this."

But he felt a sting of remorse for the chide. Obi-Wan was obviously trying not to focus on the impending discomfort, his face turned into the pillow. He moved his hands to the bare shoulders. They trembled against his touch, a touch Obi-Wan must now relate to pain, to the idea of his terrible wound being re-inflamed.

"And you know I will do my best not to hurt you." He kneaded the tightened muscles in the shoulders, up the neck, down the arms and legs. He did not use the Force, only his touch. If his hands would need to inflict pain, they would, but not without giving what comfort they could. When he came to the wound again, Obi-Wan was acquiescent, and Qui-Gon was able to quickly finish his unhappy task.

Afterward Obi-Wan seemed embarrassed to lay with his Master. No doubt the young man felt weak, and frustrated by this lingering weakness. Qui-Gon nearly reminded Obi-Wan of the missions when the situation was reversed, or much worse, but dismissed the idea.

He assured himself he was not actively seeking to annoy his still-unwell Padawan when he drew Obi-Wan nearer to him. Yet the young man was actively seeking to surprise his Master, it seemed, for he rested his head beneath Qui-Gon's without argument. Qui-Gon felt more peaceful than he had since the mission began. He thought he might be able to sleep and he would, as soon as Obi-Wan started to doze.

"I cannot help but feel that this planet got the best of us." Obi-Wan said softly.

He chuckled a little. "I would agree with you, Padawan."

Obi-Wan sighed and glanced up at him. "I do wish I had handled myself better."

Qui-Gon smiled. "You handled yourself better than I did."

"Perhaps we should meditate on this?" Obi-Wan appeared genuinely concerned about the night's emotional outbreak--a young man's shock at an older man's tears--and the ensuing physical closeness between them. As if he was backpedaling in his own race towards maturity.

Perhaps," Qui-Gon nodded thoughtfully, "but perhaps we should not be so quick to apologize for our behavior. Being a good Jedi does not mean one must forfeit one's feelings. I did lose control last night for an, albeit short, time. But the danger was past, as was the mission. Who is the Jedi who cannot weep for another Jedi's pain? And you are my Padawan." He found Obi-Wan's eyes and held them, "A Jedi must be compassionate to all others he encounters, and give his life for them, if need be. We lose the part of ourselves that can live selfishly. We live to sacrifice.

"But there are moments when the danger is gone, and there are only the two of us. Here. We gave much to our mission, to the people there who wanted none of our help. You gave your blood to that soil. I gave my tears to it. Now we are here, on this ship, and I only want to spend this time with you, helping you heal. Because I'm very glad you're alive. And because I realize, more each day, that a time will come when I will not be in the position to take care of you. It is a role I am proud to bear, while it is mine."

Obi-Wan looked briefly at Qui-Gon with watery eyes, then reached for his hand.

Qui-Gon reached back.

--


End file.
